I think you are correct that most are going to wait which will be to their detriment. IPv6 is very different and needs to be learned. Organizations can either take the time and learn and deploy it on their timetable or be forced to do it on somebody else's timetable before they are ready. The smart companies will get ahead of the game and plan for it.

I agree that it's an issue of when. I have seen many techies swear by NAT, and believe this can take them a few decades on, negating the business need for IPv6. Even then, NAT has its limitations anyway and eventually, demand will outgrow NAT's technical capacity. And IPv6 will be the only way.

I agree that it's an issue of when. I have seen many techies swear by NAT, and believe this can take them a few decades on, negating the business need for IPv6. Even then, NAT has its limitations anyway and eventually, demand will outgrow NAT's technical capacity. And IPv6 will be the only way.

@Lorna, not sure what you are cynical about... That the ISPs Ed refers to will follow his advice or that they are cynical about IPv6. In this day and age you'll be hard pressed to find any networking or IT professional who does not believe IPv6 is going to happen - the question is when. So if we take "when" out the question then 100% will make the decision articulated in the article.

@ACM, I don't think you are being cynical as much as realistic. Only a very small percentage of ISPs are going to get in front of this issue. The rest will face it at the absolute last minute because of the "change is hard" truism spiced with the "this is going to take resources away from revenue generating work" and the "we don't want to spend money on anything that doesn't have a quantifiable ROI" truisms.

So don't be cynical, IPv6 is on its way as evident by the 100,000 members of the gogoNET community where, by definition, 100% have plans to run IPv6 in the foreseeable future

... but we've been hearing this for years. Meanwhile, network admins know IPv4 and see no pressing need to learn v6. It's seen as "keep the lights on" tech, and IT figures carriers, CSPs, and vendors will eventually figure out a way to make everything roses and unicorns.

The last time InformationWeek surveyed readers was in mid-2012 (report is here). We got 681 respondents. However, 38% had no plans to run IPv6 in the foreseeable future, down from 39% of 632 respondents in June 2011. Just 5% said they already ran IPv6 in most of their networks, up from 4%.

Even if you figure adoption rates doubled - heck, tripled - that's still dismal. Really big companies have done it. SMBs are just moving to cloud and sidestepping the problem that way. Some midsize companies will get crunched, hire MSPs with IPv6 specialists, and be done.

The business side, if asked, remembers the to-do about Y2K and asks, why is this different? What should the CIO say?

My cynical take is that most organizations are going to wait until the last minute. Change is hard, and as long as there are workarounds that keep the status quo in place, we'll stick with the status quo until we can't.

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